This invention relates to a multi-functional electronic timepiece.
Attempts have been made conventionally to satisfy diversified needs of users by use of the operation of hands for the application other than the indication of the time, and one of the such attempt is described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 104281/1985 with reference to an example in which the hands indicates the golf swing.
The specification which moves the hands in match with a music is one of the methods for satisfying the diversified needs. In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 281,081/88 which is subject to an obligation of assignment to the same assignee, the specification for moving the hands in accordance with the music is accomplished by a method using a 2-chip structure consisting of a melody IC, which generates acoustic signals of melodies and tones of a musical piece which are in advance programmed, plays the music by a piezoelectric speaker or the like and is available commercially, and a microprocessor which accomplishes the timepiece specification by a program. In this case, a series of hand operations in match with the music are programmed in the microprocessor.
If a series of hand operations in match with the music are programmed as described above, the hand operations must be once again programmed or the hand operations for several musical pieces must be in advance programmed to cope with the case where a musical piece is changed.
In the case of the former, a microprocessor for each musical piece becomes necessary and this is of course very uneconomical. In the latter case, the capacity of ROM (Read-Only Memory) for storing the programs is consumed wastefully if the hand operation is merely programmed for each music and there exist the problems that efficiency of the program is low and freedom, too, is low.